Nioh 3 will be the first game in Team NINJA's fantasy action RPG series to be published by the studio's own parent company, Koei Tecmo. The first two games were published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, which meant they launched first on PlayStation consoles and only later on PC, whereas the new one will be available on PS5 and PC at the same time.
That's far from the only change in this third entry. Another big one is that it will offer an 'open field' environment instead of the relatively linear maps seen in the previous two installments. This, as explained by producer Fumihiko Yasuda in an interview with Multiplayer.it, will make the game more accessible than the first two Nioh games, and the team also avoided sudden difficulty spikes that could make the game unpalatable to newcomers. However, the overall level of challenge remains as high as customary for an action game created by Team NINJA, a studio known mainly for the Ninja Gaiden series (which just received an excellent new release).
There are players out there who probably invested thousands of hours in the Nioh series, but there are many more who may be interested in Nioh 3 as newcomers, and I'd like everyone to be able to enjoy the game. For newcomers, we have added a very thorough, albeit not excessive, tutorial. But the most important thing was to ensure that the game wouldn't have sudden difficulty spikes. Everything must happen gradually. The exploration has much more freedom, but there are also very tough foes to defeat on the open field. What we focused on was offering players many more ways to defeat the bosses, be it equipment or the exploration itself. But the challenge level typical of our games was not reduced.
I always thought that the focal point, which is really important for this game, is how you face defeat. Perhaps in a demo like the one we showed at Tokyo Game Show, you are defeated, and that can be frustrating. But what really matters is what the player thinks after being defeated. What do I have to get? How do I have to prepare to win? We chose to offer many options so that players could find their own way to victory, to defeat those powerful bosses. Ultimately, being able to succeed, the exhilarating sensation that comes with that, discovering that you could indeed beat that boss, is very important, and it was essential that we maintained that in Nioh 3, too.
Nioh 3 will be released on February 6, 2026 for PC and PlayStation 5. You can read our recent hands-on preview here.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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